


Butterflies, Bumblebees, and Bartering: A Semi-Comprehensive Guide to Dealing with a Crush on Your Senpai, by Nishinoya Yuu (Karasuno, 1st Year Libero)

by EzzyDean



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Age Swap, EnnoYama Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 03:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11222568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyDean/pseuds/EzzyDean
Summary: Chikara just wanted to go to high school, play volleyball for a few years, maybe make some new friends.  He didn't ask for this dumb crush (that he doesn't have thank you very much) and definitely didn't ask for Noya to stick his nose into Chikara's business (but after being friends with him for a decade it really doesn't matter what Chikara wants where Noya is concerned most of the time.)Too bad life never quite goes the way he wishes it would.





	Butterflies, Bumblebees, and Bartering: A Semi-Comprehensive Guide to Dealing with a Crush on Your Senpai, by Nishinoya Yuu (Karasuno, 1st Year Libero)

**Author's Note:**

> Main thing to note is that it's an age swap where all the 1st years are 2nd years and the 2nd years are 1st years.

“There are steps,” Noya states seriously as he waits for Chikara to finish tying his shoes. The seriousness in his tone makes Chikara’s stomach twist a little unpleasantly: Noya is rarely serious like this about anything but volleyball. He’s surely not this serious about his studies, much to Chikara’s frustrations because he can already sense the kind of extra work Noya is going to require in a couple months and he knows that Noya’s pleading face is one that he has yet to manage to completely steel himself against even after almost a decade of friendship.

 

“Steps,” Chikara replies blandly.

 

“Steps.  Like twenty of them.” Noya puts his hands on Chikara’s shoulders and stares down at him. Something in that look feels a bit like Chikara’s losing a piece of his soul somehow and he barely suppresses a shudder when Noya’s eyes widen even more and he leans in close. “But.  The first step is acknowledging your giant crush.”

 

“It’s not a crush,” Chikara says, pushing Noya’s hands away so he can stand and grab his bag.  “Therefore no steps.”

 

The door pops back open and Yamaguchi leans inside, taking a quick head count before calling over his shoulder.

 

“Found them!” He turns back and grins at the first years lingering in the club room. “Come on you three. I can’t lock up until you’re out.” Someone outside yells something and he rolls his eyes and makes a face at them before leaving to see what the commotion was about.

 

Chikara stares, cheeks flushing rather unpleasantly, as the door shuts slowly with a solid thump.

 

“Failed step one.” Tanaka elbows Chikara’s side as he walks past.

 

“Shut up.” Chikara grabs his bag and hurries after him. “Just shut up.”

 

Yamaguchi and the rest of the second years are waiting for them at the bottom of the steps, apparently Tsukishima and Hinata had gotten into an argument of some kind yet again and Kageyama had called Yamaguchi in to break them up. They look over when Chikara’s group reach them and Yamaguchi gives them yet another grin. Chikara does not trip this time but he can hear Tanaka’s soft snickering being badly disguised as a cough and wonders if he could get away with shoving him into a tree later.

 

“Go ahead if you want. The others are already on their way to the shop. Captain’s paying tonight.” Yamaguchi slips past them, chest almost brushing Chikara’s shoulder and he hates that he blushes. He does not have a crush. No matter what Noya tries to say or how much Tanaka snickers at him. It’s just the discomfort of getting to know new people.

 

“You sure you don’t want us to wait for you Yamaguchi-senpai?” Noya glances up when Yamaguchi leans out over the railing. “Even one of us so you don’t have to walk alone?” Chikara is going to kill Noya if he does what Chikara is thinking he’s going to do. “Chika-chan wouldn’t mind walking with you.”

 

Chikara was going to be needing new friends. Maybe the other first years - Narita and Kinoshita - would be interested in filling the positions of best friend and best friend’s weird soulmate.

 

“You’re dead to me,” Chikara bites out soft enough their senpai don’t hear. Then he shakes his head and starts towards the gate. “I’m starving and don’t want them to eat all the meat buns before we get there.” That does the trick since Hinata, Kageyama, and Tanaka all yell something unintelligible and take off for the gate at full speed. Chikara glances back at Noya and raises his brows. Noya rolls his eyes and huffs at Chikara but follows after him quickly enough.

 

Chikara tries not to think about the way Yamaguchi’s laughter filled him with warmth or the way he can hear Yamaguchi and Tsukishima’s voices behind them as they walk, rising and dropping like gentle waves lapping at his ankles.

 

“Step one,” Noya sing-songs and hooks his arm around Chikara’s elbow to get him to walk faster, the threat of the meat buns being gone having instilled a sense of urgency in him.

 

“Oh and have you completed step one yourself? Last I knew you were still in denial.”

 

“The captain’s amazing, Chika. Who wouldn’t have at least a little bit of a crush on him? Other than you. Cause you have a crush on someone else.”

 

“You know what? Forget I asked.”

 

This was going to be a very long school year.

 

—

 

Noya is his friend, he reminds himself. Noya is his best friend. The friend who has been with him the longest and seen him through the countless ups and downs of the last ten years. Noya is an amazing person.

 

Unfortunately Noya has also convinced Tanaka to hold Chikara’s arms behind his back while he forcibly applies hair gel to Chikara’s hair after practice.

 

“Noya I do not want or need you to-” Chikara cuts himself off a millisecond before Noya’s hand swipes down his face - thankfully it’s the one without gel on it at the moment.

 

“Shh.  Steps, Chika. Steps.”

 

Chikara shakes his head and makes what he’s sure is a disgusted and confused face at Noya; he doesn’t have a clue what step this is supposed to be and he doesn’t want to know.  He failed step one anyway.

 

“No. No steps, Noya.” He struggles in Tanaka’s grasp tiredly. School hasn’t even started and he just wants to go home and go back to bed.

 

Noya rubs the gel onto both hands and wiggles his fingers with a wicked grin on his face. Chikara sighs and accepts his fate with whatever grace he can muster while being held hostage with his hair still damp from practice and Tanaka cackling in his ear while a few of their teammates glance over curiously. Thankfully, Chikara notes, Yamaguchi is not in the club room at the moment. Not that it matters because he doesn’t have a crush on him. And even if it did it wouldn’t matter because he’s not dumb enough to think that his senpai would have a crush on a little first year bench warmer.

 

(This knowledge, unfortunately, does nothing to prevent his face from flushing horrifically when Yamaguchi and Tsukishima waltz into the club room while Noya is busy gelling Chikara’s hair to the sky with Chikara grumbling at him, and Yamaguchi smiles at them fondly.)

 

 

His hair is a disgusting feeling mess by the time after school practice is halfway through that day.  Sweat and gel mat his hair to his scalp and he can’t wait to get home and shower.  He doesn’t even want to begin to fathom the amount of gel Noya has to use to keep his own hair spiked like that. Or how he manages to convince his parents that he _needs_ that much gel.  Or how he does most of any of the stuff he does, to be honest.  How he can grin like that when Sawamura - the supposed object of Noya’s own crush - stands so close to him and talks to him about whatever it is that has Noya’s face lighting up like it’s his birthday Chikara doesn’t understand.  Probably something to do with guts and glory and thunder in his soul and whatever other odd catch phrase Noya has as his life motto this week.

 

Noya nods a few times and hurries over to Chikara, tossing a “Thanks Daichi-senpai” over his shoulder on the way.

 

There’s a glint in Noya’s eyes that Chikara knows means trouble.  Usually it means that Chikara is going to need bandages, some aspirin, and lose about six months to a year off his life expectancy as well.  The last time that glint happened is how they met Tanaka an hour before their first practice at Karasuno and subsequently met the rest of their team covered in leaves with blood trickling down Chikara’s elbows and Tanaka’s palms.  Noya had, surprisingly, come out of the ordeal unscathed that time.

 

“I am afraid to ask.  But what devious scheme have you cooked up this time?”

 

Noya gasps.  “Devious?  Me?  Chika-chan you wound me.”

 

“Not today, I haven’t.  But we still have like an hour of practice yet.  Give me time.”

 

“Chika-chan.  So cruel.  What have I, in the ten years we’ve been friends, ever done to deserve such cruelty.”

 

Chikara smiles sickeningly sweet at Noya even as he watches the captain approaching them with an amused look on his face.

 

“Oh Yuu,” he practically croons, suddenly not caring who was around to hear his tone.  “Would you like the list in alphabetical or chronological order?”  He asks flatly.

 

Someone behind him snorts softly and he dares to glance back.  Yamaguchi and Tsukishima are just a few steps away, Tsukishima rubbing at his nose and trying to hide his obvious amusement.  Chikara files that little tidbit away to examine later.  He is still trying to get a handle on his senpai and the kinds of things he could and couldn’t get away with saying or doing.

 

“Tsukishima-senpai, Yamaguchi-senpai.”  He nods politely and notes the twitch of discomfort that ‘senpai’ seems to cause Tsukishima and files that away as well.  He tries not to dwell on the smile that grows on Yamaguchi’s face with that same word.

 

“Okay everyone,” Sawamura calls out and gestures for the rest of the team to finish their breaks and gather around him.  “Nishinoya here has suggested we do some three on threes tomorrow and I think it’s a great idea.  It’ll help us figure out where we stand with each other and what will be the best ways to utilize all of our strengths and weaknesses.  We’ll keep these teams for about a week just so we can get used to each other a bit without overwhelming anyone.”  Sawamura smiles encouragingly at them all.  “Even if you’re not a starter by the time we start playing official games you still have strengths and you still have a place on this team.”

 

 

Chikara wants to murder Noya.  It’s not a new feeling.  If there’s a week that goes by that he doesn’t consider murdering his best friend at least once then it’s a week that leaves him feeling a smidgen uncomfortable.  But he just knows that Noya is behind this to some degree.  The team and match setup _could_ be entirely their captain and coach, sure.  But it’s more likely that Noya had something to do with it.  Because the first teams to go against each other are the team he’s on and the team that Yamaguchi is on.  As he looks over the teams listed on the clipboard on the bench he can see the logic behind them, sure.  But there’s that sliver of chaos in them that screams of Noya.

 

Team 1: Ennoshita (WS), Tsukishima (MB), Kageyama (S)

Team 2: Yamaguchi (MB), Tanaka (WS), Sugawara (S)

Team 3: Nishinoya (Li), Narita (MB), Azumane (WS)

Team 4: Hinata (MB), Kinoshita (WS), Sawamura (WS)

 

The teams are balanced enough.  One first year on each except the team that has Noya.  But that’s balanced by having the team’s ace he supposes.  Each team has at least one spiker and one blocker.  Each team has it’s own advantage too, he notes.  What with two teams each having a setter, one having the libero, and the last having the captain who is a defensive specialist.

 

They’re going to start with Teams 1 and 2 playing against each other and Teams 3 and 4 doing the same.  Then the winners will play winners and losers against losers.  Which will be interesting since Teams 1 and 2 are both teams that feature setters while 3 and 4 feature defensive players.  Chikara doesn’t fail to note that he’s against Yamaguchi’s team and Noya is against Sawamura’s team.  Yet another little hint of Noya’s fingers all over this idea.

 

“Something wrong Ennoshita?”  Chikara startles when Yamaguchi suddenly speaks from behind him and does his best not to spin around and flail like he’s been caught doing something wrong.  “You’re frowning at the lineup for the matches,” he explains when Chikara looks over his shoulder questioningly.

 

“Am I?  I didn’t mean to be.  I’m just wondering how well it’s going to work for the teams without regular setters and whatnot.”

 

“Ah.”  Yamaguchi smiles at him.  “Well I guess we’ll just have to see how well your fellow first years are at setting, won’t we?  That’s all part of the fun.”

 

“I guess so,” Chikara says somewhat absently.  It seems to be the right answer because Yamaguchi pats him on the shoulder before heading off when Tsukishima calls for him.

 

He can feel the warmth of Yamaguchi’s hand on his shoulder long after practice has ended.

 

—

 

Yamaguchi wipes at the sweat on his brow with the hem of his shirt and Chikara nearly trips over his own feet at the sight.  He manages to catch himself but only because he stumbles into Tsukishima who simply raises his brows at Chikara’s sudden clumsiness.  Chikara tries to listen to what Kageyama is telling them about a potential plan of attack for their three on three, he really does, but he can see Yamaguchi out of the corner of his eye flapping the hem of his shirt lightly to get a breeze against his stomach while Sugawara talks to him.  Chikara only manages to snap himself out of his daydreams when Tsukishima clears his throat and asks if he’s paying attention.

 

Okay.  Maybe it _is_ a crush after all.  A small one.  Maybe.  But there’s no way he’s admitting that to Noya.

 

—

 

Things are going smoothly.  Or as smooth as he can reasonably expect things to go given that he’s fifteen and apparently surrounded by models masquerading as high school volleyball players.  Seriously.  He frowns at the slightly oily sheen of his face in the mirror on the club room door and leaves with a sigh.  How Sugawara and Tsukishima have such clear skin he’ll never understand.

 

He sighs again as he remembers that he has a test tomorrow that he hasn’t entirely studied for and that he knows Noya will be calling him later tonight in a panic because he definitely hasn’t studied and his parents are pressuring him to keep his grades up as part of the deal to come to Karasuno with Chikara.

 

“Hey Chikara,” Yamaguchi calls out and Chikara hears the keys jingling as he locks up.  “Wait up.”

 

It takes about three seconds and two more steps for the words to register and he proceeds to walk straight into the light pole outside the club room steps because _Yamaguchi just called him Chikara_.

 

He’s seeing stars and pressing his hand to his nose in shock as Yamaguchi lets out a strained strangled shout and hurries down the stairs.

 

Yamaguchi just called him Chikara..  Casual as can be.  Like they’re close.  Like they’ve known each other for years.

 

It doesn’t even matter to him that he can feel the slow trickle of blood onto his lip and into his cupped palm.

 

Because Yamaguchi called him Chikara.  Yamaguchi who is now standing in front of him and gingerly peeling Chikara’s hand from his face with a grimace and wow Chikara’s never really stood this close to him or realized how much taller than him the second year is.  Apparently Yamaguchi’s growth spurt has already kicked in for him while Chikara’s is less a spurt and more a slow steady climb that he’s pretty sure will never actually allow him to reach above Yamaguchi’s shoulder.

 

He winces as Yamaguchi prods at his nose, suddenly slamming him back to reality.  The reality of Yamaguchi close enough that Chikara can feel his breath when he huffs softly and bites his lower lip as he presses against Chikara’s nose and cheeks.

 

“Are you okay?  It doesn’t feel broken.  Does it hurt a lot?”

 

“It kind of feels like when Noya and I smashed into each other racing out sleds when we were eleven.  Not broken just, ugh.”  He sniffles wetly and grimaces at the taste of blood trickling down his throat.  “Sore.”

 

Yamaguchi’s fingers pinch the bridge of his nose and he digs around until he pulls out a few tissues and presses them into Chikara’s still cupped hand hovering just under his chin to catch any drips.

 

“You two are kind of an odd friendship,” Yamaguchi says suddenly.  Chikara stares up at him and Yamaguchi must read the confusion on his face because he rushes to explain.  “I mean he’s so energetic and wild and you’re pretty level headed.”

 

“One could say that you and Tsukishima-senpai are an odd friendship as well,” Chikara snaps before he can help himself.  Yamaguchi blinks in surprise at Chikara’s tone and hurries to apologize.  Chikara waves it off and finally steps away.  “No it’s my bad.  I shouldn’t have been rude.  Noya and I have been friends since we were five and tripped over each other in an attempt to both get the last available swing at the park.  We’re rather used to people thinking our friendship is a bit unusual.”  Chikara’s phone starts ringing.  “In fact that will be him.  I promised to help him study tonight.  Have a good night Yamaguchi-senpai.”

 

As he hurries away he hopes that Yamaguchi just writes his snippiness off as a result of running into a light pole and not the nerves of being so close to Yamaguchi with his warm fingers on Chikara’s cheeks and his kind eyes flickering across Chikara’s face and the burning urge to simply take that last step forward and bury his face into Yamaguchi’s chest with a content sigh.

 

—

 

“So,” Chikara says.  He’s resigned himself to this fate.  To be mocked and teased (lovingly, of course) until the day he dies.  Noya sticks his tongue out in concentration as he lines up a bandage just above his elbow, making some sort of strange noise to show he’s listening.  They’re the first ones in the club room after school, which is pretty common actually for them, both of them already changed for practice well before the others, and that’s the only reason he’s even considering doing this now.

 

Chikara wasn’t planning on doing this.  But then this morning he had been walking to school, minding his own business mind you, thinking about practice and the tests he had coming up and wondering if he would get saddled with helping Noya and Tanaka study and wondering about the week long training camp they had coming up next week, when he saw Yamaguchi crouched on the ground petting a tiny fluffball of a dog and chatting with the old lady holding the dog’s leash.  Yamaguchi had laughed, eyes crinkling shut and joy radiating from him, and Chikara had nearly walked straight into a display of umbrellas set up outside a shop.  Walking into things around Yamaguchi seems to be a pattern for Chikara and it was as he skirted the display in a move that would impress even Noya in terms of reflex he had admitted to himself he was maybe kind of in deep.

 

“So?”  Noya finally repeats when Chikara gets lost in his thoughts.

 

“Uh.  Step one.”

 

Noya’s head whips up and his eyes light with glee.  Chikara’s pretty sure he squeals a little when he launches himself off the club room bench and knocks them both to the ground.

 

“I’m so proud of you, Chika.  You’re all grown up.”  Noya’s sitting on his stomach and Chikara’s just glad that his lunch was perfectly settled before he hurried into the club room or this would be uncomfortable.  If it were anyone but Noya the position might be uncomfortable but when you’ve literally spent an entire weekend curled around the other person trying your best not to throw up on them when you were eight - and failing at least once - you kind of lose a lot of the discomfort of unusual touching and seating arrangements.  “Step one is the most important after all.”  Noya grins down at him and Chikara smiles back.  Sometimes that’s all he can do when Noya grins at him.

 

The door slams open just as Noya opens his mouth and Chikara’s about to sit up but relaxes back onto the floor when he hears Tanaka’s voice; if any of their teammates understands Noya’s sometimes odd ways of showing affection it’s Tanaka.

 

Then Tanaka’s words register and he goes numb.

 

“Yamaguchi-senpai was just confessed to!”  

 

Noya’s fingers dig into Chikara’s shirt and he slowly sits up.  He doesn’t miss the look of horror on Tanaka’s face when he spots Chikara and he doesn’t miss the way he and Noya have an entire conversation in under two seconds with nothing but looks and and eyebrow movements.

 

He doesn’t miss any of it.  He just… doesn’t really care either.

 

“I’m going to go start my stretches,” he says a little absently as he pushes Noya off his lap and stands.  Tanaka starts to say something but Noya cuts him off with a hiss.

 

“Let him go,” Noya says.  “We can talk later.”

 

Chikara doesn’t want to talk, now or later or really ever.  He was just ready to admit to actually having a crush on Yamaguchi.  Ready to accept the inevitable.  Which means it was the perfect time for his life to fall apart.  Right before he actually managed to reach out and grasp what he wanted.

 

Pretty typical of life for him, actually.  He’s not sure why he’s surprised at all.

 

After school practice is a haze.  He does his stretches and drills and works with Tanaka and Asahi and Sugawara on spikes - the former almost excessively loud and attention drawing today and the latter two watching him and Tanaka with worry on their faces - but he’s not really focused on anything.  He can hear Hinata teasing Yamaguchi about the confession and Sawamura scolding Hinata for disturbing practice.  He can hear Noya’s overly cheerful cries of “Rolling Thunder!” echoing through the gym.  He can hear and see it all but it’s fuzzy, like he’s shrouded in a thin cotton sheet.

 

He mechanically nods along at the end of practice when coach Ukai reminds them of when they’re meeting to leave for the camp and that Kageyama, Hinata, Nishinoya, and Tanaka managed to pass their exams by the skin of their teeth so they would be allowed to join but he was expecting much better results next time and Chikara barely remembers to accept Ukai’s thanks for helping his fellow first years with their studies.

 

True to his words Noya tries to talk to him after practice but Chikara’s too caught up in his own mind-numbing thoughts of how dumb he had been to really catch anything Noya tries to say to him on their walk home.

 

—

 

When it comes time for the week long camp Chikara doesn’t try to outright avoid Yamaguchi, who looks even happier than Chikara had ever remembered seeing him look, but he doesn’t exactly try to be anywhere in the vicinity of him if he doesn’t have to be.  Going to bed is pure torture if only because he wants to maintain some semblance of normalcy so he can’t just curl up on his futon the moment he reaches their team’s room and block out the rest of the team so he has to spend a couple hours each night just a few feet away from a fairly glowing Yamaguchi who seems to have a permanent blush that only deepens every time Tsukishima shoots him a knowing look and Yamaguchi rolls his eyes at Tsukishima.  Not that Chikara is watching them very closely or anything.

 

They don’t lose all their practice matches but they lose enough that just surviving the week is a particularly gruesome type of torture he can’t believe he’s willingly putting himself through.  He’s never regretted joining the club more than the moment he goes rather light headed during one of their punishment runs and stumbles, only to have Yamaguchi reach out and plant his hand on Chikara’s chest to keep him from face planting into the dirt.  Heat blossoms in his chest from those few moments it takes Chikara to steady himself and pull away and he has a lingering ache in his chest the rest of the day that he brushes off as too much running in the hot weather.

 

By the time the end of the week rolls around he isn’t all that much better off than he was when it started.  He’s just exhausted and sore and ready to collapse into his own bed where he doesn’t have to hear eleven other people breathing and snoring and grumbling in their sleep.  He supposes he made a few new potential friends so it wasn’t totally horrendous.  He just wants to go home, sleep for an entire day, and get back to a normal routine where he isn’t within a hundred feet of Yamaguchi every hour of the day.

 

He manages to get away from the team quickly enough once the bus gets them back to their own school, saying that he had chores and homework to catch up on, and he’s a little surprised when Noya doesn’t come barreling after him to demand they talk.  Noya also doesn’t come after him at all the next day, or the next, only sends him a few texts telling him they should probably talk but that he wasn’t gonna push Chikara.  It’s almost frighteningly subdued coming from Noya who usually charges into situations without a moment’s hesitation.  But Chikara is too distracted trying to accept that his crush is just a crush that was never going to go anywhere to begin with to really think about Noya’s sudden quietness.

 

He spends his entire second week off from school doing his best to accept things and by the time they’re finally back to school, three weeks after he heard about Yamaguchi being confessed to, he’s actually starting to come to terms with the fact that he was just a silly fifteen year old with a crush on someone he couldn’t have.

 

His distraction, of course, means that he doesn’t suspect anything when Noya spots him outside the school gate their first day back from break and literally drags him, stumbling and grumbling, across school grounds until he shoves him into the gym and marches away from him.  Chikara watches Noya walking away in confusion until he hears someone clear their throat and he spins around and spots Yamaguchi a few feet away.

 

Yamaguchi just watches him for a few minutes of tense silence and it hurts.  They hadn’t been super close friends or anything like that but this sudden wariness tugs at Chikara’s ribs and he reminds himself to breathe.

 

“So what’s going on?”  Yamaguchi finally says after they’ve spent far too long simply staring at each other.  “I don’t remember doing anything to upset you.”  Chikara looks at him and shakes his head in confusion.  “You barely spoke to me the entire week of our training camp, you could barely be in the same gym as me.  Even if we weren’t on our way to being friends I thought we were at least teammates.”

 

Chikara fidgets and wonders what to say.  If he should admit to having a stupid crush and explain that it was nothing and he just needed some time to get past it.  If he should just say he had a shitty couple weeks and didn’t want to be around anyone.  If he should just keep his mouth shut and resign himself to probably being hated no matter what he said or did.

 

“I mean I thought we were at least becoming friends but then the day before break started you just-” Yamaguchi breaks off with a sharp breath and Chikara’s eyes snap up to him.  “You found out.”  He feels the breath catch in his lungs as Yamaguchi’s face falls and he seems to shrink before Chikara’s eyes.  “I don’t know how- I just-”  Yamaguchi sighs and scrubs his hand across his face.  “I’m sorry.  That would explain everything.”

 

He doesn’t know what to do.  Yamaguchi looks truly heartbroken.  But he can’t figure out why.  Why would Yamaguchi be this upset that Chikara knows he got confessed to?  Why is Yamaguchi apologizing for it?  Chikara opens his mouth but nothing comes out so he closes it again, biting his lip in indecision.

 

“I’m sure the last thing you wanted to find out about was your senpai having a crush on you.  It’s probably a bit weird.  Don’t worry though I won’t jump you no matter what sort of stuff you might have heard Tsukki teasing me about.”

 

The numbness of the last few weeks slams into him again and then shatters as he goes cold and then hot.

 

“What?”

 

Yamaguchi blushes.  “I’m assuming you overheard, or maybe Tanaka or Noya did and then told you, me telling Tsukki just why I kept refusing the confessions I’ve been getting.  And I apologize.  I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

 

“Wait.  You.  You.   _You_ have a crush on _me_?”  Yamaguchi flinches at his tone and Chikara flushes.  “Crap no sorry.  I just.  Me?  I don’t get it.  Is this some shitty joke?”  He looks around the gym, waiting for someone to jump out and yell surprise.  For someone to tell him this is all some elaborate prank.  “You can’t have a crush on me.  I just.  Why?”

 

“I dunno.  I just do?  I like your personality and how hard you work and your sense of humor and how much Noya and Tanaka seem to think of you and I was thinking that I’d like to get the chance to get to know you better and before I knew it I just kind of had a crush on you?”

 

“No.”

 

“No?”

 

“No.  I’m the one who… You’re not supposed to have a crush on me.  It doesn’t get to work.”

 

Yamaguchi perks up but Chikara is too busy panicking to notice.  It doesn’t get to work out.  He doesn’t get to have this.  He doesn’t get to have much, really, and he understands that.  Accepts it.  Reluctantly but he accepts it.  He has Noya, has had him for years.  He has Tanaka now too.  And the team and decent grades and a place to live.  He doesn’t get to have Yamaguchi liking him back.  Does he?  Isn’t that a bit selfish of him?

 

Yamaguchi’s presence looms around him, surrounds him and makes his fingers twitch, as Yamaguchi steps up to him and waits.

 

“Ennoshita?”

 

This doesn’t get to happen.  He barely even knows Yamaguchi, really.  Yamaguchi barely knows him.  There’s no way for this to be happening.  This is too much.

 

“Chikara?”

 

His breath stops.  Yamaguchi’s hand hovers near Chikara’s own.  Chikara’s fingers twitch and brush Yamaguchi’s palm.

  
“Do you like me too, Chikara?”  He can’t find his words, not that he really ever can it seems, so he swallows and nods, eyes trying hard to focus on Yamaguchi’s shirt collar while the rest of him strains to focus on listening to Yamaguchi’s voice.  “Did you not know I like you?”  He shakes his head.  “Then what had you so upset?  Can you tell me?”

 

Chikara lets his fingers twitch against Yamaguchi’s palm again and Yamaguchi takes the hint and slides his hand until their fingers tangle together.

 

“Tanaka said you had been confessed to.”  Yamaguchi waits patiently for him to continue.  “And I just figured that was the end of it.  I didn’t know who you had been confessed to by but I figured there was no way you’d ever want me over whoever it was so I just…” He shrugs and lets his voice trail off.  It’s not really a secret on the team that his self-esteem isn’t the highest but it’s also not something they really talk about.

 

“You know.  The funny thing is the person who confessed told me that I just didn’t know them well enough yet to tell them no for sure and if I just gave them a chance they’d prove they were the one for me.  But all I could think was how I didn’t know you all that well yet and I was determined to change that.  Even as I was being confessed to all I could think of was what I could do to get to know you better.  What we could do to get to know each other better.”  He squeezes Chikara’s hand.  “Do you think we could?”

 

“Get to know each other better?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I think I’d like that,” Chikara admits without having to think about it much.  “I think I’d like that a lot.”

 

—

 

Noya hands him a sheet of paper and Chikara groans at the title scrawled across it: **Butterflies, Bumblebees, and Bartering: A Semi-Comprehensive Guide to Dealing with a Crush on Your Senpai, by Nishinoya Yuu (Karasuno, 1st Year Libero)**

 

 

Then he reads the rest of it and starts laughing.

  
Step 1: accept/acknowledge the crush

Steps 2-19: ?????

Step 20: actually date said crush (profit)

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come yell at me over on [tumblr](http://ezzydean.tumblr.com)
> 
> (oh and I do actually have the entire list of steps for Noya's guide :D)


End file.
